Erminia Ardissino is presently Ricercatore confermato in Letteratura Italiana at the Università di Torino, Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione. She obtained a Masters Degree in Romance Languages at the University of Georgia in Athens, a Ph.D. at Yale University, and the Dottorato di Ricerca in Italianistica-Letteratura Umanistica at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. She has had several essays published on Dante, Petrarch, Humanism, Tasso, Baroque Italian Literature, Manzoni, etc., in the most important journals in the philological and literary field. She has worked for the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, and she is on the editorial board of Testo. She has published two volumes on Torquato Tasso: "L’aspra tragedia". Poesia e sacro in Torquato Tasso (Florence, Olschki, 1996) and Tasso, Plotino, Ficino. In margine a un postillato (Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2003); a volume on baroque sacred oratory: Il Barocco e il sacro. La predicazione del teatino Paolo Aresi tra letteratura, immagini e scienza (Vatican City, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001), and a book on seventeenth century Italian literature (Il Seicento, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2005). She has prepared the critical edition of the Ovidio Metamorphoseos Vulgare di Giovanni di Bonsignori da Città di Castello and of the Operetta by Angelo Galli (both came out at the Commissione per i Testi di Lingua, Bologna, 2001 and 2006). She also edited Poemi biblici del Seicento (Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso, 2005), the Trattato delle acutezze di Matteo Peregrini (Turin, RES, 1997), and a selection of Galileo’s letters (with commentary; Rome, Carocci, 2008). Together with Sabrina Stroppa she has written Leggere testi letterari (Milano, Bruno Mondadori-Paravia, 2001). She has organized two conferences on Dante: Dialoghi con Dante. Riscritture e ricodificazioni della Commedia (2004) and Etica e teologia nella "Commedia" (2006; the first proceedings came out in 2007, the second are in print). She has just finished an essay on the liturgical aspects of Dante’s Commedia.

Vittorio Enrico Avvedimento is professor of General Pathology at the Medical School of University "Federico II," Napoli. He received his MD degree at the University of Napoli and completed a residency in Neurology at the School of Neurology of the same University. He spent 2 years, 1978-80, in the laboratory of Molecular Biology, at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, in Bethesda. In 1987 he was awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Fellowship, ACS. In 2002 he spent the year at the Institute of Cancer Research, Columbia University, as "L. Schaffner" fellow. He is currently coordinator of the PhD program in Molecular Pathology at the University "Federico II," Napoli. This program was ranked in 2007 first among the 120 PhD programs of the University by an independent panel of reviewers.
Avvedimento has been directly involved in the cloning of the first prototypic collagen gene (Cell, 1980, 21, 689-696; Cell, 22, 887-892) and thyroglobulin gene (PNAS, 1986 83, 323-327). By using these molecular tools he dissected a prevalent phenotype in epithelial tumors: the loss of differentiation memory of mammalian cells during neoplastic transformation. The experiments in transformed thyroid cells revealed some general mechanisms governing the transmission of signals by two main transducers, cAMP and Ras. Although these signals were involved in multiple phenotypes, the mechanisms by which they regulated growth and differentiation in mammalian cells were still obscure.
The relevant discoveries can be summarized as follows: 1. Oscillations of the cAMP drive the mitosis in fertilized Xenopus eggs (Science, 1996, 271, 1718-1722). 2. The localization and the type of transducer regulate the timing and the intensity of cAMP nuclear signaling. Neoplastic transformation (Ras) represses differentiation memory by altering the localization of cAMP kinase, PKA (Gen. Dev. 1991, 5, 22-28; 1992, 6, 1621; J.Biol.Chem. 1996, 271, 25350-25359). 3. Somatic mutations of TSH receptor gene drive thyroid hyperfunctioning adenomas (J.Clin. End. Metab., 1994, 79, 657-661).
The information and the tools generated by these discoveries were translated in vivo by inactivating or stimulating specific genes encoding the regulators of these transducers (Ras or cAMP) in several animal models of human diseases--so called somatic gene therapy (Nature Medicine, 1995, 1, 541-545; see also comments and News & Views in the same issue or in Nature, 1995, 375, 433; Nature Medicine, 1996, 2, 634-635; Nature Medicine 1997, 3, 775-779).
In the last 5 years Avvedimento has been focusing his attention on the basic mechanism(s) underlying human diseases. Progressively, during this period, several basic scientific issues, independently approached, are converging on a more comprehensive evolutionary vision. Aging and illness in humans represent a successful compromise between preserving genome stability versus oxidation-driven cellular processes. Oxidation, the basic energy-producing process, is costly, since it continuously attacks DNA and jeopardizes genome stability (New Engl. J. Med (2006) 354 (25): 2667-76). Recent data from the laboratory show that DNA damage and faithful repair are marked by an epigenetic scar (methylation) that silences the surrounding gene(s). This scar, by silencing damaged and repaired genes, represents a powerful evolutionary force, since it preserves the genetic information and reduces further damage to the genome (PLoSGenet. 2007 vol. 3, pp. 1144-1162). At the same time, other data from the lab indicate that oxidation, selective DNA damage and repair drive the basic transcription machinery used by sex hormones (Science 2008 Jan 11;319 (5860): 202-6). How can these two aspects of the same process (genome stability and oxidation) be reconciled? Senescence and diseases may directly derive from the imbalance of oxidation and silencing on gene expression.
While at Columbia, in collaboration with Max E. Gottesman, he will try to answer some of these questions by tracking down some relevant players linking DNA damage to gene silencing and repair.

Michele Battini is Full Professor of Modern History at the University of Pisa. He has been a post graduate student and a research fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, then Charge and Associate Professor of Modern European History at the University of Pisa. He has been a research fellow or delivered lectures at, among other institutions, the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis of Amsterdam, the Ecole Normale Superieure de Paris, the Université de Marseille - Aix en Provence, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of: L'Ordine della Gerarchia. I contributi reazionari e progressisti alle crisi della democrazia in Francia 1789-1914 (Turin, 1995); Guerra ai civili. Occupazione Tedesca e Politica del Massacro - Toscana 1944 (Venice, 1997); and “Rhetorics of Hierarchy: On Linguistic and Ideological Premises of Totalitarian Fascism” in S. Avineri and Z. Sternhell’s Europe’s Century of Discontent (Jerusalem, 2003). His most recent book is The Missing Italian Nuremberg: Cultural Amnesia and Postwar Politics (New York, 2007).

Ferdinando Fiumara received his M.D. (2000) and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience (2005) from the University of Torino. He has continued his postdoctoral studies as an associate scientist of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Columbia University and he is currently Assistant Professor of Physiology at the University of Torino. His doctoral and postdoctoral research has been focused on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate the formation and plasticity of synaptic connections between neurons. In particular, he has studied the role of synapsins, a family of synaptic vesicle-associated proteins, and their phosphorylation by protein kinases in the regulation of neurotransmitter release and in the short-term plasticity of synapses. He has also studied the formation and the short-term plasticity of behaviorally relevant neuronal circuits reconstructed in vitro. Currently, he is developing the neuroelectronic interfacing of complex circuits with controlled morphology and predictable connectivity of individually identifiable invertebrate neurons in culture for long-term analyses of synaptic activity in neuronal networks. As a fellow of the Italian Academy he will conduct his research in the laboratory of Eric Kandel at Columbia University focusing on novel molecular mechanisms involved in the perpetuation of long-term plasticity and memory storage at the synaptic level through the action of prion-like proteins and persistently activated protein kinases.

Marco Formisano completed his undergraduate studies in Classics in Palermo (Italy) and in Paris (Université de Paris VII, Jussieu) and received his PhD from the University of Palermo. After graduating and before starting the doctorate, he was awarded a fellowship which allowed him to go to Berlin as a visiting student at the Freie Universität: this marked the beginning of a close connection with Germany that continues to this day. Since then he has won various grants that have allowed him to spend long periods of time in Germany (Berlin, Hamburg), in the US (Brown, Yale, NYU) and in the UK as a Frances Yates Fellow at Warburg Institute. Currently he has a position as Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Cooperative Research Center (SFB) "Transformations of Antiquity" at the Humboldt Universität in Berlin. His areas of interest are ancient technical writing; late antiquity; art of war; classical tradition in the Renaissance; martyrological literature (esp. Perpetua); panegyric; autobiography; literary theory; marginal texts. He published a monograph on late Roman technical literature ("Tecnica e scrittura", Rome 2001), an edition of Vegetius’ Epitoma rei militaris (Milan, 2003) and of the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis (Milan 2008) and is co-editor of a collection of papers with the title "Perpetua’s Passions. Pluridisciplinary Approaches to the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis (with J. N. Bremmer, Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2009) and of another on "War in Words. Die Transformationen des Krieges von der Antike bis zur Frühneuzeit (with H. Böhme, De Gruyter Verlag, forthcoming 2009). Currently he is working on another monograph on the art of war in antiquity and in the Renaissance.

Stefano Gattei (1970) graduated in philosophy, summa cum laude, at the University of Milan in 2003, and was awarded a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science at the University of Bristol in 2004. Back to Italy, he received a bursary from the University of Padua and was post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pisa (2005-2008).

He has lectured widely both in Italy and abroad, and taught philosophy and history of science in Milan, Pisa and Vercelli, where he was temporary lecturer in 2005-2006. His main research areas comprise: philosophy of science in the twentieth century, methodology, the philosophy of Karl R. Popper and critical rationalism, Thomas S. Kuhn (with special reference to Wittgenstein and Logical Positivism), William Whewell, the dynamics of theory-change and conceptual-change, incommensurability, the theory of rationality; history of science, Johannes Kepler, history of astronomy and cosmology, history and philosophy of mathematics.

He authored a few books, as well as several articles and book contributions. His most recent publications include La rivoluzione incompiuta di Thomas Kuhn, Turin: UTET, 2007; Introduzione a Popper, Rome-Bari: Laterza 2008; and the forthcoming Thomas S. Kuhn’s ‘Linguistic Turn’ and the Legacy of Logical Positivism (Aldershot: Ashgate) and Rationality without Foundations (London-New York: Routledge). He has also edited Thomas S. Kuhn, Dogma contro critica: Mondi possibili nella storia della scienza, Milan: Raffaello Cortina, 2000; Ripensando il razionalismo critico, special double issue of Nuova Civiltà delle Macchine, XX, 1-2, 2002; and The Kuhn Controversy, special double issue of Social Epistemology, 17, 2-3, 2003.

He is currently working on a Reader’s Guide to Popper’s Logic of Scientific Discovery (to be published by Continuum Press, New York), as well as on a collection of Feyerabend’s papers in the philosophy of physics (Physics and Philosophy, under contract with Cambridge University Press, New York). He is also completing the critical edition and translation of Johannes Kepler, Strena seu De nive sexangula (1611). His research project at the Italian Academy further develops this research on Kepler, especially focusing on his mathematical works and methodology.

Mauro Grondona was born in Genoa, Italy, on September 15, 1972. He was trained in law at the University of Genoa and graduated in 1996. After a four year post-graduate scholarship from the University of Genoa, he received a PhD in Private Law from the University of Pisa (2005). He currently teaches Private Law at the University of Genoa (Faculty of Law).
He is author of two books (La clausola risolutiva espressa, 1998; L’ordine giuridico dei privati, 2008, forthcoming) and several papers on topics such as contract law, tort law, family law, interpretation of the law, and comparative law.
His main interests in his research work are the role and the power of the judge, and the history of legal ideas and their impact on society.
In his semester at the Italian Academy, he will work on the exemplary figure of Alexander Pekelis, a jurist and a legal philosopher who escaped from Russia in 1917, living first in Italy (where he taught Legal Theory at the University of Rome "La Sapienza") and then, due to the Fascist Racial Laws, in the USA, becoming, along the path of Legal Realism, a pioneer in the social research against the excesses of Legal Formalism.

Rita Lucarelli was born on the 23rd of August, 1972, in Ostuni, Italy. From 1992 to 1996 she studied at the University of Naples "L'Orientale," where she took her degree in Classical Languages and Egyptology with a thesis entitled "Chapter 178 of the Book of the Dead." From 1999 to 2003 she was attached to the Research School CNWS of Leiden University (the Netherlands) with a Ph.D. grant. Her Ph.D. thesis was published in 2006 as The Book of the Dead of Gatseshen. Ancient Egyptian Funerary Religion in the 10th Century BC. Currently she has a post-doc position at the University of Bonn (Germany), supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and concerning research on demons in magical and funerary papyri of the Pharaonic period. Her areas of expertise include religion, magic and demonology in ancient Egypt.

Marco Pagano is Professor of Economics at University of Naples Federico II, President of the Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF) and Research Fellow of the Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and the European Economic Association (EEA). He holds a B.A. from Cambridge University (1981) and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT (1986), and taught at Bocconi University and the University of Salerno.
Together with Josef Zechner, he is managing editor of the Review of Finance, the journal of the European Finance Association. In 1997 he was awarded the BACOB European Prize for Economic and Financial Research, jointly with Ailsa Röell. He chairs the Scientific Committee of EuroMTS and is a member of the Research Board of Unicredit Group. In the past, he advised the Italian Treasury on the reform of security markets (1995-96), and was a member of the Treasury's privatisation committee (1997-2001) and of the EU Parliament advisory panel on financial services (2002-04).
Most of his research is in the area of financial economics, especially in the fields of stock market microstructure, banking and corporate finance. He has also done research in macroeconomics, especially on its interactions with financial markets. His publications have appeared in several journals, such as American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, RAND Journal of Economics, Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Review, and Economic Journal.

Vittorio Pellegrini received his PhD in physics from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa in 1997. Currently he is a senior researcher at the Institute of Condensed Matter Physics (INFM) of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, where he coordinates the research line "Semiconductor nanostructures for nanoelectronics and spin-photonics."
His scientific interests are in nanoscience. In particular his experimental work currently focuses on the study of emergent states of interacting electrons in nanostructures by means of elastic and inelastic light scattering and magneto-transport. Systems of interest include two-dimensional electrons in semiconductor quantum heterostructures and graphene, few-electron states in quantum dots, and hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanostructures. Additional experimental activity is concerned with single-molecule imaging and with investigation of protein trafficking and interaction.
Vittorio Pellegrini is a member of the executive committee of NEST (National Enterprise for nanoScience and nanoTechnology) center at the Scuola Normale Superiore, member of the "List of Experts" of the Italian Ministry of University and Research, and editor of the international journal Solid State Communications. He teaches "physics of nanostructures" at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and at the Scuola Superiore in Catania. He served as chair of many international conferences and coordinated several national and international research projects.

Silvio Pons is Professor of East European History at Rome University "Tor Vergata" (Rome II). He is the author of Stalin and the Inevitable War 1936-41 (Frank Cass, London 2002) and recently of Berlinguer e la fine del comunismo (Giulio Einaudi Editore, Torino, 2006). He is editor of the following volumes: The Cominform. Minutes of the Three Conferences 1947/1948/1949, Fondazione Feltrinelli, Annali, XXX (Milan, 1994); (with F. Gori), The Soviet Union and Europe in the Cold War, 1943-53 (Macmillan, London 1996); (with A. Romano), Russia in the Age of Wars 1914-1945 (Feltrinelli, Milan, 2000); (with Federico Romero), Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War (Frank Cass, London 2005); (with Robert Service), Dizionario del comunismo, 2 vols. (Einaudi, Turin 2006-2007).
His main research interests are focused on the history of the Cold War. He is currently writing a book on the history of international Communism and working on a project about the political culture of Italian Communism in the last decades of its life.